Worst interview

skylight

My worst interview was several years ago, left alone in a "reception" room which was more like a small prison cell for over half an hour. The interviewer was rude and ignorant - she literally ran to the interview room and complained that I wasn't keeping up. She then asked stupid questions such as could I recall my first day at a job I had had over 10 years ago and could I please describe what my nursery school teacher looked like.

She then asked the killer question - had I ever had an affair with a boss at work. I refused to answer that question (at that point, I never had, but it was none of her business).

I was offered that job, but turned it down - there was no way I was working for that woman.

Alikay

I once went for one of those group interviews. The ice-breaker was that we all had to talk about events in our favourite soap opera. I never watched soaps as I'd been working evenings, so briefly explained and started to talk about my favourite non-soap programme (I chose Casualty, as it followed a soap-ish formula with the main characters). The interviewer snapped "Never watch it. Can't stand programmes like that" and went straight to the next candidate :eek:. Rude cow!

tyllwyd

I remember my old boss telling a story of someone he'd interviewed (for the job he'd given to me). He'd arranged the interview early in the morning, and turned up to find her waiting at the door but he didn't have a key to get in so they had to go to a local cafe to talk. Her name was Siobhan and he spent the whole time calling her 'see-ob-han'. The interview was frosty and a few days later she sent him an invoice for her time!

To be honest, she did the right thing, he was an idiot and it was a rotten job.

Treehugged

tyllwyd wrote: »

I remember my old boss telling a story of someone he'd interviewed (for the job he'd given to me). He'd arranged the interview early in the morning, and turned up to find her waiting at the door but he didn't have a key to get in so they had to go to a local cafe to talk. Her name was Siobhan and he spent the whole time calling her 'see-ob-han'. The interview was frosty and a few days later she sent him an invoice for her time!

To be honest, she did the right thing, he was an idiot and it was a rotten job.

I swear that would make a great episode in a sitcom :rotfl:

Treehugged

skylight wrote: »

I was offered that job, but turned it down - there was no way I was working for that woman.

Good for you. I've said it before and I'll say it again, job interviews cut both ways but some employers don't get this

Mista_C

A bit of background first. One of my specialisms is in mobile technologies, specifically Blackberry. At the time there was very little in the way of readily available support documentation outside of the RIM 'rulebook' which was very strict in what was on offer. I had published a few articles, from an administrators point of view, on the handset and server-side configuration/administration from an enterprise business perspective.

Anyway...

I was contacted by a company looking for someone to oversee the deployment and administration for 1000s of Blackberry handsets heading for the police force.

They told me all in there were around 20 potentials they had contacted and a brief interview would be required to secure the role. If I was interested they would give me a 15 minute interview. It was during an extremeley busy time at my current job and I was unable to book time off but said I may be able to squeeze in a quick interview during my lunch hour. They agreed that would be fine.

I arrived in plenty of time, booked myself in with reception and took a seat. I waited for 20 minutes before someone came down to fetch me. We headed off into an interview room where he said "I'll be back in a moment, I'm just going to let my manager know you're here as he wants to sit in on the interview".
So I sat there patiently... for 25 minutes. The guy popped back with 3 sheets of A4 paper full of questions and told me "If you can just answer these questions I'll be back in a moment". I started filling the questions which appeared to be general IT support questions.

I got through the first couple of pages thinking that none of the questions really applied to the kind of role I'd been called in for. I answered them anyway and got to the last page which was simply title 'Email'.
The first question asked "A senior manager wants you to forward email from another account. Explain, in detail, how you would achieve this?" and gave me a box, 1" x 4" for my answer. Just then the guy popped his head around the door and asked how I was getting on. I told him "Fine, but this question is a bit vague, there's so many ways of doing this on different systems there's no way I can provide a detailed answer for one in such a small space, let alone all of them." He replied "Don't worry about it, the questions aren't important and aren't even relevant to the job. I only gave them to you so you had something to do while waiting".

It now occurred to me what was going on, I asked "OK, so is your manager on his way?". "Not yet" he replied. I said "He's on his lunch break isn't he?". The guy replies sheepishly "yes".

I had a little rant about how I'd been kept waiting for 55 minutes (including the time with the questions) and told him I was leaving. He tried to stop me but I grabbed my things and said "I wouldn't mind waiting but you agreed the time was OK and besides, you called me".

Later that day I had their HR Manager call to ask what had happened. He apologised and offered me another appointment which I refused.

Treehugged

skylight wrote: »

My worst interview was several years ago, left alone in a "reception" room which was more like a small prison cell for over half an hour. The interviewer was rude and ignorant - she literally ran to the interview room and complained that I wasn't keeping up. She then asked stupid questions such as could I recall my first day at a job I had had over 10 years ago and could I please describe what my nursery school teacher looked like.

She then asked the killer question - had I ever had an affair with a boss at work. I refused to answer that question (at that point, I never had, but it was none of her business).

I was offered that job, but turned it down - there was no way I was working for that woman.

You sound attractive and judging by her questions she sounded as though she'd been stung by a previous attractive employee. There's no need that level of unprofessionalism though.

I love it when I hear people say they turned down jobs on principle or because they felt the place didn't fit.:beer:

gildius

I had an interview and the old 'What's your weakness?' question came up.

I said that I faint when people describe their illnesses to me - it's a thing that's gets to me and it's also incredibly specific and entirely irrelevant to anything.

Didn't get that job!

spadoosh

Had an interview for a diy shed. Went into store and told a ca i was there for interview and was seated in the canteen. When i got into the interview the manager made an off comment about timekeeping to which i responded with 'o, sorry i was in the canteen and wasnt told to come through' anyway he seems to churp up a bit through the interview so thinking all is not lost.

Gets to end of the interview and after all the q's he turns around and goes 'right steven, excellent interview, i shall be in touch regarding the post'

my response

'my name is david, i told you at the start of the interview i was david, o and i was on time. Im guessing steven wasn't?!'


Loved how the guy tried to make me feel small and ended up smashing him out of the park!! Took a job at a competitior.

MissSarah1972

skylight wrote: »

She then asked the killer question - had I ever had an affair with a boss at work. I refused to answer that question (at that point, I never had, but it was none of her business).

.

LOL You should have asked is that how she got her job! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

OR

'no not at work but I have had with 3 outside work'